The Unseen Angels
by charmedquintuplets
Summary: The Doctor meets May, a blind girl who is unaware that Weeping Angels are following her. How will The Doctor save her from being taken again? And how does it feel to travel the universe and not see the wondrous things he can show you? The Doctor will have to be canny in his descriptions and perhaps take her somewhere they can give her new sight..
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was another Wednesday afternoon, walking home through the rain. Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. I started to pull out my house keys. Twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty "Stop! Hold still. Don't move. Whatever you do, don't move."

I screamed at the alarming sound I hadn't expected and swung my backpack towards it with all my might. I heard the resounding clunk of papers on head. "Ow! I told you not to move. That was the direct opposite of not moving!" The voice was male and irritated.

"What the hell do you want from me?" I demanded from the man, whom I presumed was in front of me.

"I want to keep you safe, a task which you are making far more difficult than it needs to be."

"Okaay." I said, quickly thinking this was a wind up; an unkind, mean spirited wind up in the pouring rain on a Wednesday afternoon after a three hour lecture on Milton. Was it one of the rugby club idiots? I knew Jeff hung out with some of them, or maybe it was some awful hazing ceremony. Waylay and obfuscate a disabled student, trying to get home for a cup of tea, instead of standing in the pouring rain without an umbrella.

I heard a weird high pitched electrical sound, a sort of whir, and felt the man invade my personal space as he pointed the high-pitched gadget at my face. I slapped his hand away.

"My screwdriver!" His…..screwdriver… thing had clattered to the pavement.

"Who are you anyway! I mean I know it's all a nasty joke, but you haven't even given me a name to play along with."

He invaded my personal space again. This time his seemingly large head close to my face. Although I couldn't see him, I sensed that he was scrutinizing me.

"Who wants to play a joke on you?" My heart crept up into my throat. I didn't know this man, but he seemed to care about me. That voice; it wasn't the voice of someone cruel. I didn't know this mystery man but I could just tell that he was genuine concerned for me.

"I..I don't know," I stammered, uncomfortable with his closeness. I aimed for where his chest would be and gave him a hard shove to get away.

"Will you stop hitting me!" He exclaimed.

"Who are you? Give me a name!"

"The Doctor."

"What doctor?"

"_The_ Doctor. It's a title."

"Bit of a ponsy title, isn't it?"

"No," he said, sounding wounded. "It's cool. It's mysterious."

"Well, you're certainly that."

"I haven't asked your name." He said, suddenly sounding young and giddy, like a small boy about to go on an adventure.

"May," I said. I stuck out my hand to shake, somewhere in the air in front of me. I wasn't sure if he'd moved or not.

"May," he said, sounding more like the little boy, full of excitement. " It's a pleasure to meet you, May." He shook my hand. He had large, rough hands, like he was a child hiding inside a grown up's body.

"Shall we go inside?" He asked.

I nodded, and held out my keys. "I lost count when you interrupted me. It's number 18b, with a red door. You'll have to help me."

Suddenly he held my arm very tenderly and looped it through his own, like an old fashioned gentlemen. The material of his jacket was rough, like tweed.

"Come along, May. Let's get you some tea."

We were sat at the kitchen table, sipping at tea. Well, I was sipping. He was slurping with the most horrifying sound of a wet hoover.

"May," he said, and left it hanging for a moment. "What would you say if I told I wasn't from here."

"I'd definitely believe you." He sounded Southern, very Queen's own. He couldn't possibly be a Brummy.

"Not from Earth either."

I thought about it for a second. His behaviour had been very peculiar, so had his mannerisms and I thought about his high pitched electrical screw driver.

"I'd probably believe that too."

"And what if I said there was a whole giant universe beyond Earth full of different races and powers and technologies and empires?"

I thought about Brian Cox, for a second and Bill Bryson. The universe is so vast it is overwhelmingly likely that we are not alone, and if The Doctor was from a different planet then why couldn't there be even more other planets?

"I suppose I could believe that as well."

"Good girl," he said, and slurped his tea.

"Because one of those different races from a different planet," he continued, " is after you."

I frowned. My heart leapt up again, this time in fear.

"What do you mean? What race?"

"They're called The Weeping Angels, and May, I'm so so sorry. So very sorry to do this, but they're surrounding your house right now. We need to leave before they can get you again."

"Again?!" I exclaimed, truly afraid and confused this time.

The Doctor grabbed my hand and pulled me towards my front door. He yanked it open and stopped.

"Now you can't see them because you're blind, so I'll have to see them for you." He switched on the whining screwdriver again. "They're not at full strength yet but you'll still have to be quick. Do you know how many steps it is down your front path?"

"Nine." I said. "Good girl." He squeezed my hand. "Turn right at the end of the path, then take twelve paces. You'll reach a box." He took my free hand and folded a key in my palm. "Open it with this, and wait for me inside. You're going to have to be very brave with me, May, but I know you can do it. Go now. Nine paces, right, then take twelve. I'll meet you in the box."

I didn't have time to question him. I ran. Nine, right, then twelve paces. I almost smashed straight into it. I fumbled for the key and went inside.


	2. Chapter 2

It was bigger on the inside. You didn't need sight to know that. I was… am…was completely blind. No shapes or vague colours but I do have a slight sense of light and dark. I could tell it was bright in here. Very bright, and cold. I reached forward, looking for something to hold onto. I found a rail and made my way, very carefully. I edged my way down a step, then down another and another until I was on a smooth metal surface.

There was a great mechanical hum at what I assumed was the centre of the room. This could no longer be a wind up. I didn't know anyone clever enough to make a box that's bigger on the inside.

I reached out for the humming thing. It appeared to be a huge console. I was careful not to touch anything like a switch. The humming was comforting. It felt like a hug, a warm welcome from the box. I hummed back.

"Hello," I said to the console. "I'm May." It felt strange that it didn't feel strange to talk to a machine, but I knew it could hear me. It was clearly alive in some way. It had a personality, a sort of consciousness. I heard the door creak behind me as The Doctor entered again.

"She's called the Tardis," he said, approaching me.

"What does it do?" I asked, stroking her console, like I was patting an animal.

"She's a time machine, and a relative dimension in space machine too. She can go anywhere, any time you like.

"This is amazing," I said.

"It would be even more amazing if you could see it." He took my hand and placed it over the console, allowing me to skim the buttons and switches. I felt at once moved and angry. Moved that he trusted me to touch this marvelous machine and then angry that – "Don't." I said. "Don't treat me as if I have half a life just because I can't see. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm as whole a person as you are."

I was hurt. He seemed so different to others: kind and wise and old, despite his boyishness. I had assumed he'd see me differently to others. Sadly I was mistaken. He seemed to regret what he'd said immediately though. "Sorry," he replied. "Sorry. That was very unkind of me."

"It's ok, "I said, even though it wasn't. "I get it all the time."

I stroked the console still in the silence between us. It hung there for longer until –

"Right. We'd best be off then, May. What's your last name?"

"Adlestrop," I told him.

"We'd best be off, May Adlestrop. I heard him pull a great lever and then the Tardis rumbled into action. With a great lurch we appeared to be taking off and a giant, whirring, groaning sound like a car with it's handbrake on. It was magnificent.

"Where are we going?" I shouted over the noise and mayhem. I heard great snaps and miniature explosions of busting fuses. I felt a shower of heat from the console and the great violent shaking of the Tardis all around me.

"Back into your own time line. That's why the Tardis is resisting it. Very dangerous to visit your own past, or your future, that's even worse!" He shouted, but he appeared gleeful about it.

"Then why are we going there?!" I yelled back.

"Not there. Then!" The Doctor replied. "And we need to see how far back the angels have been sending you."

The Tardis groaned and shivered, calming down. I assumed we'd landed, whenever we were.

"What do you mean? I've never been sent back anywhere."

He reached for my hand and looped it through his again to guide me.

"That's what you think, May, but you have. You just didn't see it coming, so you've forgotten it ever happened. But why are you forgetting?" He asked, as he pulled open the Tardis door.

"You see Miss Aldershot," he explained, whirring his screwdriver ahead of us. "You are the perfect prey for the Angels. They are quantum locked creatures. They are stone when you look at them, but when your back is turned, they can attack. From their point of view, you're the easiest meal they've ever had, and it would appear," he stopped. His screwdriver whirred higher. "They're recycling you."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Sorry? They're recycling me?"

"Yes," he said, and he pulled out his new bleeping device.

"Great!" I said. "Well at least my attackers are environmentally friendly!" His machine beeped more.

"What's that beeping at?"

"Well, about 50 yards in front of us you are walking into a WH Smith and….the angel is approaching…. And you've been taken."

"What! Why didn't you stop it?"

He turned to me, and I guessed he was examining me closely. I stepped away.

"Because it's already happened. Not sending you back would cause a paradox,but," he pulled out his dinging device again. "I've got a signal on it now so we can track it back." He grabbed my hand again and led me back to the Tardis console. "I just need to put in these space-time coordinates and she'll take us where and when we want to go."

Obviously I couldn't see, but he sounded like he was smirking. I heard him pull a lever and the handbrake car noise started again. "Hold on!" The Doctor shouted.

I did as he said, grabbing onto a rail. The Tardis jerked and jumped, rocked and did cartwheels in time-space along with my stomach. I felt my tea make its way back up when, thankfully, the ship landed.

"Basildon!" The child doctor exclaimed. "1990."

The Doctor ran to the Tardis door and said, "Come have a look."

I gave him a "did you really just say that?" face and followed, using the railing as a guide.

"What am I not looking at?" I sniffed.

"An orphanage."

I now gave him a 'not impressed' face. "I'm going to need a bit more to go on than that, please."

"Oh, right. Sorry. Errm. It's a tall building, three storeys, Victorian style, red brick. There's a playground in front of it. It's night. Non one's around, except… ooh! That's fun!" He cooed.

He led me forward, until we climbed some steps to the entrance of the building. I heard a mewling. The Doctor pulled me down to crouch next to him. "It's a baby!" he said, softly. The baby stirred. "Ssh," he said, "It's all right little one. The Doctor's here. You'll be safe."

My heart melted a little at the sound of him, cooing over this baby. "No it's not. It's cool."

"What's cool?" I asked, puzzled at his out of nowhere speech.

"My bowtie."

"But I didn't say anything about a bowtie."

"No, she did."

"Who?"

"The baby. I speak Baby."

Before I could reply to this he said, "She! She! She's a she!"

"Hello again. One quick question before you have a nap again," he said to the baby, "do you have any idea where you've come from?"

I heard a gurgle in reply.

"No recollection of Mum then or Dad? Hmm. Interesting. May, " he turned to me, "do you know where you were born?"

"Err, no." I replied. "My parents said I was a mystery child. There was no record of my birth anywhere. My biological mum obviously wanted well shot of me. That's why I never tried to track her down."

"Oh, May, May, May," he said, in a pitying voice. "You were adopted?"

"Yes."

"Did your parents ever tell you where you were adopted from?"

"No, but they lived in London for a few years before having….." It had finally dawned on me, and I could have kicked myself for being so slow.

"We'd best get her inside. Press the doorbell."

The Doctor did as asked and then led me round the side of the building. I heard the door open and then the person at the door picking up baby me and taking hr inside.

BACK INSIDE THE TARDIS

"Oh, they are clever. Oh so very clever!" The Doctor paced around. He was angry now. Every trace of the child-man had gone from his voice. He was ferocious now. A man not to cross.

"So, they've been sending me back in time and then de-ageing me so I can't remember. Then waiting for me to reach 21 and sending me back in time again to start all over again."

"Exactly."

"But, you said us intervening before with that other me you were watching. You said that would cause a paradox. Why isn't this causing one? There are multiple versions of me running round England all in the same time frame."

His new whizzing machine dinged. He hit it.

"What is that thing you're carrying?"

"It's my wibble detector." He said off hand.

"Your…. wibble detector?"

"Yes, it dings when there's stuff. And the reason they're not causing a paradox, the thing that is oh so clever is that they're sending you in time AND space. Same time but to such far flung parts of the country that your multiple selves never meet and your families never meet, so the Angles are safe from paradox."

"Well. I'd rather not be an eternal meal for some statue monsters, thank you very much. How are we going to stop a repeat?"

There was a heavy silence between us, just the gentle hum of the Tardis. I stroked the railings again. She felt so alive. It was like petting a friend.

"By making a paradox." The Doctor said at last.

"What! I thought that was a bad thing? Won't, like, reality collapse or something if we do that?"

"How do you know that?" He asked, sounding like a child annoyed at being shown up in the playground.

I shrugged. "Just a guess."

"Well, yes. That's exactly what will happen. If we let it get that far, and the Angels know that too. That's why they've been preventing it. But if we draw them to the sight of a potential paradox then we can trap them."

"Okay then," I said. "Let's get going. What's our first move?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"We contact all of yourselves," The Doctor replied. He moved away, down stairs I guessed from the echo, and I heard the metallic clanking of flying objects he chucked out of a box. I wondered what box of delights it was, what sort of gadgets and other whirring, whizzing objects it contained.

He came back up to me and I heard keyboard clicking. I reached out to touch it. "A laptop. You are a time travelling alien and your best weapon is a laptop?"

"I don't use weapons," he said tersely.

"Okaay. Then what's the laptop for?"

"Well, the Tardis has got a lock on you now, so I can find your addresses. I'm just sending an email to everyone. Do you think you're called May everywhen?"

"I don't know." I was scared then. Who was I? Which one of us would be the original? Would we have different personalities, have different interests and likes? I thought about my parents, my current parents I suppose, and tried to picture, if the blind can "picture", having another family. Would I have sight in my other lives? A giddy smile spread across my face until I remembered. No, of course I won't. That's the angels' upper hand. I wouldn't keep going back if I could see.

"Doctor," I asked, interrupting his typing. "Mhmm?" He replied.

"What will happen to me at the end of this, if we can end it?"

The tapping stopped.

His voice was quiet when he answered me. "I don't know, May."

My heart was thumping harder now. I swallowed a lump and tried to push my fear away.

"Well, I don't want to just sit around here like a lemon and be rescued. I'd like to have a hand in my own fate, if that's all right. What can I do to help?"

The Doctor said over his typing, "Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're in your house but it's not your house?"

"I suppose," I replied, not sure where this was going.

"Well, try to hold onto that. Think about the people you saw. Do you see in your dreams?"

"No," I replied, sadly. "Just colours sometimes, vague blues and reds."

"Well, that's something to start on. I want you to focus on those dreams May, because they could be very important later on. I have a plan."

And then there was a great lurching. To the right, to the left.

"There's no whirring noise, Doctor. No whirring! Why are we moving without whirring?"

The Doctor lunged past me to the console. "The Angels are on to us! They're surrounding the Tardis now. Aaaah! We've got to do an emergency take off, hope the thrust leaves them behind."

And then she took off. Speeding upwards and round and round. I was holding onto the railing behind me.

"Have we lost them?"

"Yes, but now we have another problem." The Doctor replied.

"Great! What's that then?"

"They'll be waiting for us back in 2014. They may not know exactly what we're up to but they'll be waiting for us."

"Great! Well how are we going to gather all the Mes together?"

"We've still got the laptop.. aaah!"

The Tardis lurched again. A siren started screaming.

At the console, The Doctor shouted. "No! No, you don't!"

"Doctor, what is it?"

"We have a stow away. One of the Angels is gripping onto the Tardis, slowing us through the vortex."

"Can we shake it off?"

"Well, I'm going to try. Hold on tight!"

"Geronimo!"

"What did you say?" The Doctor shouted.

But it was too late for me to reply. We were spinning, going upside down. I was regretting my jammy dodgers and tea now.

"Urgh, please stop spinning us! My tea's about to come up!"

I swallowed convulsively.

"Not yet. Sorry, May!"

I tried to right myself, tried to stand. Suddenly I felt something very close to me, not firm. It was a fleeting sensation, just building. It was like a ghost or a hologram."

"Doctor!" I shouted over the racket. "Something's wrong."

"Yes, May. I know something's wrong. That's why we're whirling like a space Dervish! Lovely order of monks, by the way! Well, they aren't really monks. But that's theological semantics!"

"No! Doctor. There's something in front of me. I can't see it, but there's something here."

"What!?" He shouted back.

"There's something in front of me! I know I can't see it, but something's happening that isn't suppose to. I know it!"

"Can you just hold on a moment. I can't focus on more than one thing at a time."

"You are a TIME TRAVELLING SPACE ALIEN WITH A BOX BIGGER ON THE INSIDE! Of course you can multi-task! Now look at me!" I was furious now. I was scared. I didn't know what was happening and the Doctor wasn't listening to me. I wanted to reach out and slap him again. But I felt I might have overdone it with the violence.

"May! Don't move! Don't move a muscle!"

"What?!"

"There's an Angel in front of you!"

"What?!"

"An Angel! The one outside has gotten in through the monitor screen!"

"How?!"

"The image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel! But I don't have time to explain! Just stay where you are! She knows you're blind! You'll just have to move out of her way. Very slowly. Come towards me, May. I'm on your left, just step towards me. Three steps, that's all it will take." The Doctor sounded nervous. He sounded afraid. I didn't like that.

I stepped towards him, as he told me. I reached out my hand and grasped his adult boy's hands. He hugged me. I still didn't like this personal space thing, but I had to except it at this stage. Being in mortal peril put that into perspective.

"Doctor. Are you looking at the Angel because you know I'm…."

And I was gone. There was nothing for a second and then I felt a cold wind on my face. I had left the Tardis. I had no idea where I was… or when.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Gssh." There was radio noise, coming from my coat pocket. "Gssh. Hello? Hello? May? Can you hear me? May, it's the Doctor."

I pulled the radio device out of my pocket and found a button to press.

"Doctor? Where am I? When am I?!"

"Errr.. You're back in 2014. In Edinburgh."

"Edinburgh? I've never been to Edinburgh!"

"Well, you have actually, as one of your other selves. Which is good news! It means you can meet one of yourselves in person. Have an ally since I can't be there."

"Where are you, then?"

"I'm still on the Tardis. The Angel's gone. Gravity got the better of it. But I can't come help you, not until right at the end. They know we're up to something."

I liked the sound of 'we.' "And they'll be waiting for me if I turn up any time now. I'll be with you, May, right at the end. But you'll have to do the rest on your own."

I swallowed hard. I felt I might cry, with the weight of what was being asked of me. I had to save myself and my other selves from the Weeping Angels, without help from the magical man in the box. He was certainly strange, but I thought he was going to fix everything.

"Gssh. You'll have to fix this on your own."

I swallowed again.

"Okay," I said. "Okay. Where's Edinburgh me?"

Surprisingly it didn't take long to explain to Jessica (That was Edinburgh me's name.) Being blind, your sense of hearing gets a lot sharper and everyone has a unique voice.

"Urgh. I still can't believe I sound like that. It's worse than listening to yourself on an answering machine."

Jess and I were walking down Oxford Street in London now, looking for Emma, the Londoner me. She hadn't replied to the email The Doctor sent, so Jess and I were going to tag team her and persuade her to come with us to the rendezvous point. It was strange and wonderful spending time with my other selves. We were all different. Circumstances and up bringing had made us different people but we still shared some personality.

We were in a boutique shop. Jess rang the bell. She was fun, had a flare to her movements. She was confident as she lent on the counter. (She just exuded confidence) Then I heard my own voice. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," said Jess me. "From your voice, I'm guessing you're Emma. A man sent you an email yesterday and you haven't replied. You need to come with us. Oh yes, this is May, she's also you. You've been taken back in time by some stone angels and we're want to end the loop by luring them to a paradox."

"What?"

"Just come with us, " I piped up. "We can explain afterwards." Jess grabbed for her arm and we frog marched her out of the shop. She wasn't happy but she was the last piece of the puzzle we needed for the Doctor's plan to work.

"Err, May," said Jess. "I think we have company."

"What?" I turned my head, trying to hear something coming.

"I can sense it, too," said Emma. "Okay, I'm thinking you're both less crazy now."

"Oxford Street," said Jess, "It's old architecture. Angels can hide in plain sight…so to speak," she quipped.

"We've got to run, get a tube," I said.

"No," Emma said, "It's dark, they can hide there."

"Guess we'll just have to run then."

Luckily the Doctor's rendezvous point was just between Oxford Street and Regents. There was a building site going on where an old office block was being knocked down.

"Gssh! May? Are you there yet?"

"Yes, Doctor. We're here. Where are you?"

"Not until the very end, May. I can't risk them guessing."

"Okay, right, well.."

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

I heard my own voice again. The forth and fifth me were close by. All of us had arrived.

Jess filled the others in quickly while I paced around, marking out the office room we were in, feeling the walls.

"Now, we have to draw them all together, the Doctor said," Jess was telling them. "So we need to stay central, together. I suggest we stand in the middle, hold hands. That way if they try to send one of us back, or kill one of us…"

"Kill us?!" Piped up Mary me.

"Yes, kill us," Emma replied.

"They won't be able to do it to just one of us. They can't risk that sort of paradox."

"When is this Doctor person going to arrive?" Asked Connie me, from South Wales.

"Right at the very.." I couldn't finish my sentence. A stone hand was gripped around my arm. This was what an Angel's touch felt like. It was hard and painful, claws digging into my skin, drawing blood. I didn't need to see a menacing scowl to feel the rage coming from the Angel. But it wouldn't kill me. Why wouldn't it kill me? I was the ring leader. I was the one who was causing the paradox. Eliminate me and they could take one of the others and carry on their renewable energy source.

"May!" The others shouted! "May, hold on!."

And then I realized. I lifted my communicator, "Gssh. Doctor, I think they're taking me hostage. I wouldn't come here if I were you. I think they wanted this all along. They want to trap you."

"Gssh. But the alternative is to leave you in a stalemate, May and co. I wouldn't do that."

"But, Doctor. You said it yourself! The Tardis is too precious. With that sort of time energy they could feed forever. I won't let you."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not coming in the Tardis then, isn't it?"

I winced. The claws sharpened. The Angel was angry at being thwarted. Her hostage situation wasn't going to work. Would she kill me now? Now that her plan had failed?

"Look," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "You Angels have dominated my lives for years. You've created so many versions of me that us meeting is a huge paradox. You stupid creatures, could've ended time by doing this, I'm sure. You're committing your own murders."

The Angel tightened her grip again. I prayed she didn't touch an artery with her claws.

"But it's no good killing me. There are four other versions of me now. Four other people who know what you are and know that you're coming. We can warn the others. We can stop you." I said.

"I may be blind but I see you, now. I know what you are. You are scavengers, picking on the bones of a potential existence, but you've run out of dinner. Touch any one of us, kill any of us or send us back again, and you'll have caused a big enough paradox to end yourselves. And no amount of time lord is going to stop you from your fate. So, I suggest you run."

"Pretty good, May," a booming speaker rang out, a megaphone, "for a first time speech against an alien monster. But that's my gig."

"You pompous.."

"Now! Angels! You have me exactly where you want me, don't you? You can sap on all the energy you like if you take me! But I have seen fourteen thousand years of history. I have seen the creation of this planet and it's destruction. I have seen the birth of stars and the fall of empires. I have caused galaxies and parallel worlds and time lines to collapse. I think the important question is do you think you can handle that kind of buffet?"

"They're circling us now, May. I can feel it," called Emma.

"We're trapped," said Connie.

"I wouldn't count on it," I replied.

"But then you'd be missing something quite big. Oh, yes, it's a grand statement and it's true, " The Doctor continued, "But you're all missing something much more important. I'm looking at you. And so are a load of builders who've just turned up to work! So, what do you think is going to happen, when I do this?"

I heard the whirring, handbrake grinding sound again. The Tardis was back! My heart leapt into my throat at that sound. I was so glad to have it back.

"Gssh. May, tell everyone to get into the Tardis, she's programmed to let them in."

"Everyone into the box!" I shouted. And then there was a great boom, a crashing and crumbling. A crane had come through the ceiling to lift up the Tardis and in the same moment a wrecking ball flew at the spot the Tardis had been in before. The Doctor was bulldozing the statues! In that moment, the Angel holding me loosened its grip and I twisted to get out the way. I threw myself on the floor, just in time for the next hit of the wrecking ball, wiping out the Angel that had held me captive. I laughed in relief at it.

The wrecking ball gave one last pendulum swing, which crumbled the floor beneath me. I fell: twenty feet at least. I threw my arms out before me and felt the panic rising up to engulf me. After all that, I was going to die anyway?

A hand grasped mine: a rough adult hand, belonging to a boy. The doctor was holding me safe.

"Hold on, May! I've got you. Just pull yourself up." I felt weak. I felt like I'd been running a marathon with no end. I didn't think I could do it.

"Come on, May. Come on! You can do it, just pull yourself up." I heaved as hard as I could, and flailed my legs, trying to feel for leverage. I found a crumbling edge of concrete and pushed upwards, to feel the Doctor's arms around me, hauling me up the last part until I landed on him in a heap on the broken floor of the office block.

"Where did everyone go?" I asked, as we strolled back into the Tardis.

"They're gone," The Doctor said casually.

"Gone?"

"Yep." They never existed now. I wasn't sure which one of you would survive, but without the Angels influence, it's broken their hold over you. They couldn't hold onto that time energy, plus the Tardis helped to stabilize the paradox. It really is dangerous having multiple versions of yourself around."

"But what's going to happen to their families? Will they remember them?" I asked, as The Doctor fiddled around with dials on the console.

"They're your families now. How lucky. An orphaned girl now has five families to call her own. You can't cancel out that sort of familial love. It will be strange and difficult for them. But they remember you, in a way. Now, they just remember the five of you put together."

I was sad for a moment. I had liked meeting all of myselves. They were all different and yet the same. I'd wanted to get to know them.

"Don't you feel it?" the Doctor asked, "All your memories?"

"I concentrated for a second, and I did. I did feel it. I could remember all of myselves as one person. All the friends I had, all the families: all of the knowledge as well. I had five degrees! That was pretty cool. English and Maths and Physics and Philosophy and Law.

"Can we go see them?" I asked.

"Of course," the Doctor replied, a smile in his voice.

"And then, after we've done that, how would you like to get your sight back?" He asked.

He pulled a lever and the handbrake groan began again.


End file.
